Dregs Quotes

• None would live past years again, Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain; And, from the dregs of life, think to receive, What the first sprightly running could not give.

  John Dryden

  Running, Past, Thinking

  'Aureng-Zebe' (1675) act 4, sc. 1

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• The Physician, by the study and inspection of urine and ordure, approves himself in the science; and in like sort should our author accustom and exercise his imagination upon the dregs of nature.

  Alexander Pope

  Nature, Exercise, Science

  Alexander Pope, William Roscoe (1847). “The works of Alexander Pope, esq., with notes and illustrations, by himself and others. To which are added, a new life of the author, an Estimate of his poetical character and writings, and occasional remarks by William Roscoe, esq”, p.239

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• O cease! must hate and death return, Cease! must men kill and die? Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn Of bitter prophecy. The world is weary of the past, Oh, might it die or rest at last!

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Hate, Past, Men

  'Hellas' (1822) l. 1096

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• Readers may be divided into four classes: 1) Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtied. 2) Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time. 3) Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read. 4) Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Book, Reading, Glasses

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1856). “Seven Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton: A List of All the Ms. Emendations in Mr. Collier's Folio, 1632”, p.13

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• A nation without dregs and malcontents is orderly, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come.

  Eric Hoffer

  Love, Peace, Malcontent

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• The coercive power of government is always a beacon to those who want to dominate others -- summoning the worst dregs of society to Washington to use that power to impose their will upon others.

  Harry Browne

  Government, Use, Want

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• Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.

  Voltaire

  Excellent, Middle, Bottom

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• The bitter dregs of Fortune's cup to drain.

  Homer

  Cups, Bitter, Fortune

  Homer (1760). “The Iliad of Homer”, p.11

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• If you desire to drain to the dregs the fullest cup of scorn and hatred that a fellow human being can pour out for you, let a young mother hear you call dear baby 'it.'

  T. S. Eliot

  Funny, Mom, Mother

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• What’s any artist, but the dregs of his work?

  William Gaddis

  Artist, Shambles

  William Gaddis (2002). “The Rush for Second Place: Essays and Occasional Writings”, p.93, Penguin

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• It is our best work that God wants, not the dregs of our exhaustion. I think he must prefer quality to quantity.

  George MacDonald

  Thinking, Quality Not Quantity, Literature

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• Last year was a lifetime, a whole career in one season. We went from being the dregs to winners.

  Damon Hill

  Athlete, Years, Careers

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• The world is weary of the past, Oh, might it die or rest at last!

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Past, World, Might

  'Hellas' (1822) l. 1096

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• Most poets are elitist dregs more concerned with proving their skill with a dictionary than communicating ideas with impact.

  Henry Rollins

  Impact, Skills, Ideas

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• As I enter on the path of happiness, I scatter the dregs and shreds and clippings of the past behind me. I divest myself of all the crapulous years.

  William John Locke

  Past, Years, Path

  William John Locke (19??). “The Belovd Vagabond”, p.207, Library of Alexandria

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• You must learn to drink the cup of life as it comes ... without stirring it up from the bottom. That's where the bitter dregs are!

  Agnes Sligh Turnbull

  Life, Cups, Bitter

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• Yes. We both have a bad feeling. Tonight we shall take our bad feelings and share them, and face them. We shall mourn. We shall drain the bitter dregs of mortality. Pain shared, my brother, is pain not doubled, but halved. No man is an island.

  Neil Gaiman

  Brother, Pain, Men

  Neil Gaiman (2005). “Anansi Boys”

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• What's any artist, but the dregs of his work? the human shambles that follows it around. What's left of the man when the work's done but a shambles of apology.

  William Gaddis

  Apology, Artist, Men

  "The Letters of William Gaddis edited by Steven Moore - review" by Robert Potts, www.theguardian.com. June 15, 2013.

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• The dregs may stir themselves as they please; they fall back to the bottom by their own coarseness.

  Joseph Joubert

  Fall, May, Please

  Joseph Joubert (1867). “Some of the "Thoughts" of Joseph Joubert”, p.106

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• The last dregs of winter spoiling the taste of everything.

  Katherine Paterson

  Winter, Lasts, Taste

  Katherine Paterson (1978). “Bridge to Terabithia”, Avon Books

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• What is written is merely the dregs of experience.

  Franz Kafka

  Written

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• The outsider may indeed wonder at this seeming much ado about nothing. What a tempest in a tea-cup! he will say. But when we consider how small after all the cup of human enjoyment is, how soon overflowed with tears, how easily drained to the dregs in our quenchless thirst for infinity, we shall not blame ourselves for making so much of the tea-cup.

  Okakura Kakuzo

  Tea, May, Outsiders

  Okakura Kakuzo (2000). “The Book of Tea the Illustrated Classic Edition”, p.30, Tuttle Publishing

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• Gambling has held human beings in thrall for millennia. It has been engaged in everywhere, from the dregs of society to the most respectable circles.

  Peter L. Bernstein

  Gambling, Circles, Respectable

  Peter L. Bernstein (2012). “Peter L. Bernstein Classics Collection: Capital Ideas, Against the Gods, The Power of Gold and Capital Ideas Evolving”, p.321, John Wiley & Sons

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• The cross stands as the final symbol that no evil exists that God cannot turn into a blessing. He is the living Alchemist who can take the dregs from the slag-heaps of life - disappointment, frustration, sorrow, disease, death, economic loss, heartache - and transform the dregs into gold.

  Catherine Marshall

  Disappointment, Loss, Blessing

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• There are various methods by which you may achieve ignominy and shame. By murdering a large and respected family in cold blood and afterward depositing their bodies in the water companies' reservoir, you will gain much unpopularity in the neighborhood of your crime, and even robbing a church will get you cordially disliked, especially by the vicar. But if you desire to drain to the dregs the fullest cup of scorn and hatred that a fellow human creature can pour out for you, let a young mother hear you call dear baby "it.

  Jerome K. Jerome

  Mother, Baby, Blood

  Jerome K. Jerome (2015). “Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow”, p.71, Sheba Blake Publishing

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